Faculty Economics and Business Master Thesis 2017/2018
Specialization: Leadership and Management
How can vision communication stimulate employees to support organizational change: The relation between a vision of opportunity and employees support for change and the interacting roles of affective commitment to change and procedural justice.
Author: Maurits van den Eijkel Student number: 10640908 Date of submission: 21-07-2018
University of Amsterdam – Amsterdam Business School Supervisor: dhr. dr. M. Venus
Statement of originality
This document is written by student Maurits van den Eijkel (10640908), who declares to take full responsibility for the content of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of the completion of the work, not for the contents.
Abstract
Despite the great interest of research in organizational change, many researchers estimate the fail rate of organizational changes at around 70 percent. This fail rate of organizational changes suggests a lack of knowledge in the field of organizational change, especially when looking at vision content. Vision content is barely researched and proven to be effective separately from the transformational leadership literature. Moreover, research has never tried to fully understand what an effective vision should contain in the sense of content. Therefore, this study analyzed the relationship between a leader’s vision and employee support for change, looking at visions that display a strong and favorable future for both the employees and the organization. Besides, this study investigated the interacting roles of affective commitment to change and procedural justice in this model. This study gathered data using supervisor-employee dyads and analyzed the data through regression analyses. The findings showed that no significant relation was found between a vision of opportunity and employee support for change. Furthermore, this research did not find proof for the interaction effects of procedural justice and affective commitment to change. However, a relation between a vision of opportunity and affective commitment to change was found together with a relation between procedural justice and affective commitment to change. Further implications and future directions are discussed in the discussion section of this paper.
Keywords: vision content, vision communication, procedural justice, affective commitment to change, change management, leadership, vision of opportunity
Table of Contents
1. INTRODUCTION... 5
2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ... 8
2.1 ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE ... 8
2.2 SUPPORT FOR CHANGE ... 12
2.3 LEADERSHIP ... 14 2.4 VISIONS OF CHANGE ... 16 2.5 COMMITMENT TO CHANGE ... 19 2.6 PROCEDURAL JUSTICE ... 21 3. METHOD ... 25 3.1 SAMPLE ... 25 3.2 PROCEDURES ... 26 3.3 DATA ANALYSIS ... 27 3.4 MEASURES ... 27 4. RESULTS ... 30 4.1 DESCRIPTIVES ... 30 4.2 REGRESSION ANALYSIS ... 32 4.3 EXPLORATORY ANALYSES ... 36 5. DISCUSSION ... 38 5.1 KEY RESULTS ... 38 5.2 THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS ... 39 5.3 PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS ... 42 5.4 LIMITATIONS ... 42 5.5 FUTURE RESEARCH ... 44 6. CONCLUSION ... 46
1. Introduction
Organizational change plays an ever-growing role in today’s world of business. Highly dynamic competition, high focus on customer satisfaction, and innovations in the field of technology are all reasons for the growing intensity of changes in today’s organizations (Rousseau & Tijoriwala, 1999). Despite the great interest of research in organizational change, Balogun & Hope-Hailey (2004) argue that many researchers estimate the fail rate of organizational changes at around 70 percent. In addition, Mankins and Steele (2005) found that the difference between plan and execution of organizational changes has a performance gap of over 37%. As a result, Burnes (2004) states that the above-mentioned success rate of organizational changes suggests a lack of knowledge in the field of organizational change. Guilmaraes and Armstrong (1998) elaborate on this by arguing that in the field of organizational change, research tends to focus on individual and cursory analyses, resulting in the current theory being mostly funded by assumptions which have not yet been challenged.
To deal with these low success rates, researchers have tried to find the reason why organizational changes tend to fail and how to overcome these failures. Many researchers have attempted to find the best way to manage organizational change leading to different types and definitions of change, namely episodic, continuous, and systematic change (Weick & Quinn, 1999; Huy & Mintzberg, 2003). More importantly, researches have tried to make sense of employee’s reactions to change (Rafferty, Jimmieson, & Armenakis, 2013; Ford et al., 2008; Jacobs et al., 2008, Dent & Goldberg, 1999; Piderit, 2000). Namely, for changes to be successful, organizations need the support of their employees (Armenakis & Bedeian, 1999). Furthermore, researchers have studied change management practices in favor of employee support for change, ranging from procedural justice (Ten Have, Ten Have, Huijsmans, & Otto, 2017), to uncertainty and employee participation (Bordia, Hobman, Jones, Gallois, & Callan, 2004). Most importantly, researchers have tried to investigate several leader behaviors.
Bommer, Rich, and Rubin (2005), for example, argue that that transformational leadership behavior (TLB) of managers positively influences employee support for change, of which an essential factor is the articulation and communication of an effective and inspiring vision of the future.
However, Venus, Stam, and van Knippenberg (2018, in press) argue that this is where the literature lacks content and understanding. A lot of researchers in the field of organizational change claim that employees should feel some sense of urgency and discrepancy for the change to be successful (Bommer et al., 2005; Kotter, 1995; Ten Have et al., 2015; Lewin 1951). It is argued that this can be reached by communicating an inspiring vision for the future state of the company. A vision like this is mostly defined by the transformational leadership literature that mainly focuses on a vision that challenges the status quo, and thereby creates a sense of discrepancy for employees (Kotter, 1995). Nevertheless, so far, research has failed to examine such visions as a concept of its own and proven it to be effective separated from larger frameworks like in the transformational leadership literature. Venus et al. (2018, in press) argue that researchers have not attempted yet to understand what such a vision should contain in the sense of content. They found that individuals respond different to alternate visions of organizational change (Barger & Kirby, 1995; Venus et al., 2018, in press). Also, they argue that some employees may see the change as an opportunity, while others see the change as an assault on their current position or identity. In summary, vision content shows a limited theoretical background in the literature on organizational change (Yukl, 2010). Hence, this concept and its relationship with employee perceptions, and employee support for change needs more in-depth research (Venus et al., 2018, in press).
To elaborate on the literature of vision content, the aim of this study to investigate the relationship between a leader’s vision of opportunity and employee support for change, looking at visions that display a strong and favorable future for both the employees and the
organization. It is expected that such a vision is positively related towards employee support for change. Furthermore, it is expected that a vision of opportunity is positively related to affective commitment to change, which is, in turn, is positively related to employee support for change. In addition, this study examines a possible moderating effect of procedural justice on this relation, where it is expected that higher levels of procedural justice will positively moderate the relation between a vision of opportunity and employee support for change.
This study contributes to the previous literature in different ways. First, this research is focused not only on the relation between a vision of opportunity and support for change from an employee perspective, but also the moderating effect of employees’ perceptions of procedural justice on these individual concepts of vision is analyzed for the first time. Furthermore, affective commitment to change is analyzed by means of a mediator rather than a direct predictor of support for change. Finally, this study elaborates on the limited theoretical background of visions of change.
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. First, the theoretical background in which the hypotheses are developed are discussed in detail. Second, the research design is discussed in the method section, together with measures and the statistical procedure. Third, a comprehensive analysis of the results will be presented in the results section. Finally, following the results, a thorough discussion together with, limitations of the current study, theoretical and practical implications will be discussed, ending with a short conclusion.
2. Theoretical Framework
In this section, the literature review is discussed, with regard to meaningful and relevant findings in the field of organizational change, reactions to organizational change and transformational leadership. Second, in this section, visions of organizational change, with the emphasis on visions of opportunity are discussed. Thirdly, the relationship between visions of opportunity and employees’ support for change is analyzed. Finally, relevant literature concerning procedural justice and its effect on the relationship between a vision of opportunity and affective commitment to change is examined.
2.1 Organizational change
Early research on organizational change defined the concept of change as “The event in which something appears to become, or turn into, something else” (Ford & Ford, 1994). In the last couple of years, there has been increased attention in the field of organizational change. In their article, Senior & Fleming (2006), distinguished three main components of organizational change: rate of occurrence, how it comes about, and scale. Todnem By (2005), analyzed all existing literature on organizational change and used Senior and Fleming’s (2006) three components as his main guideline throughout his article. He argues that the rate of occurrence of organizational changes can be categorized into five categories: discontinuous change, incremental change, bumpy incremental change, continuous change, and bumpy continuous change. Where discontinuous change and incremental change occurred the most in the literature. Discontinuous change is described as rapid shifts in strategy, structure, or culture (Grundy, 1993). Also, Burnes (2004) identified the concept of continuous change, which is characterized by the ability to change continuously to keep up with the increasing pace of change. Incremental change, on the other hand, is described as individual parts of an
organization dealing with increasing and separate changes individually, handling one change at a time (Burnes, 2004).
Subsequently, the concept of how change comes about of which there is not widely accepted concept with regard to how to deal with organizational change. Bamford and Forrester (2003) argue that the literature is mainly dominated by emergent and planned change. First, the planned approach to organizational changes emphasizes the importance of understanding different states an organization can be in and has to go through in order to reach a desired state (Elrod & Tippett, 2002). Namely, Lewin (1951), argues that when willing to change, an organization has to go through three steps; unfreezing the current state, shifting to a new state, and finally refreeze in this new state. A couple of years later, Bullock and Batten (1985) elaborate on this by creating a new four-step model. The phases described in this model are exploration, planning, action and integration. This model has proven to be highly applicable for multiple situations and describes the stages an organization has to go through to implement a change successfully (Burnes, 2004). On the other hand, there is the emergent approach, which emphasizes that change is a continuous, open-ended process of adaption to contextual circumstances (Burnes, 2004). Most importantly, the emergent approach characterizes change as a process of organizational learning (Altman & Iles, 1998). Supporters of the emergent approach argue that this approach is more suitable than the planning approach because of the uncertainty of the internal and external environment. Finally, the emergent approach suggests that organizations should function like open learning systems in which strategy and change are created out of contextual factors (Dunphy & Stace, 1993). Therefore, it can be suggested that the emergent approach is more concerned with facilitating and getting ready for change instead of providing steps of how to deal with organizational change.
The last component of organizational chance is concerned with the scale of the change. Todnem By (2005) argues that, when talking about scale, there seems to be less confusion in
the current literature. Dumphy & Stace (1988) for example, argue that change can be separated into two different perspectives, namely incremental change and organizational change. Where incremental change refers to a slower and long-term oriented systematic approach when implementing changes, transformational leadership refers to a faster, forced and short-term oriented approach in implementing changes. Dumphy and Stace (1988) argue that there is no best implementation method and that it depends on the context and situation of the change. Furthermore, they defined four different characteristics of change (Dunphy & Stace, 1993). These characteristics entail corporate transformation, modular transformation, incremental adjustment, and fine-tuning. When the change affects the whole organization, and is characterized by radical changes in strategy, corporate transformation is the right concept to use. Examples of corporate transformation are reorganization, and reformed power and status (Dunphy & Stace, 1993). Next, they defined modular transformation, which is characterized by significant changes in one or more departments. In contrast to corporate transformation, modular transformation only affects a part of the organization. Third, incremental adjustment entails evident changes in management processes and strategies but does not entail radical change. Finally, fine-tuning, which is the continuous change of organizational processes, strategy and structures (Nelson, 2003). This characteristic usually affects organizational divisions or departments and is the opposite of radical. Dumphy & Stace (1993) argue that fine-tuning is meant to develop personnel for the current strategy, link organizational mechanisms, and to create special teams to increase the focus of cost and quality.
To be able to support managers in managing changes throughout organizations, some researches have tried to come up with models for change. A popular model in the field of change is the n-step model that Kotter (1995) introduced in his article. The model consists of eight subsequent steps that need to be fulfilled in the right order to successfully implement a change, meaning that the model reflects planned and episodic change. An essential part of the
model is the creation and communication of a vision towards employees to gain their support and motivation. Also, Ten Have et al. (2015) created a model meant to help managers implement changes successfully in their organization, which is named the change competence model. This model is a framework that helps in creating an overview of the most essential factors in the proposed change. The model consists of six factors, rationale and effect which answer the question “what it should be”. Additionally, the factors focus and energy answer the question “how it should be accomplished”. Finally, Ten Have et al. (2015) formulated the factor connection, which connects all the before mentioned factors together, and context referring to the specific context of the change. Again, an important part of the model is the creation and communication of an inspiring vision to get employees on board and motivated.
An essential factor in these models is to overcome or prevent resistance to change. In the literature about organizational change, there is a lot to find about resistance to change and its definition. Lewin (1951) was the first to introduce the concept of resistance to change and defined it as a phenomenon of restraining forces that could be rooted anywhere in the system. However, Dent and Goldberg (1999) argue that this definition has changed over the years. They argue that nowadays resistance to change can be seen as something that is rooted in the employee, as if they are subject to change. They argue that currently the concept of resistance to change is seen as a psychological concept where employees stand against managers. However, they argue that employees do not always resist change, but fear potential losses or consequences. Ford and Ford (2008) elaborate on this by stating that employee resistance could occur to the managers own sense-making of an employee’s behavior. They also argue that managers themselves could contribute to employee resistance to change as well by breaking agreements. Besides, Ford and Ford (2008) suggest that resistance can be seen as a resource instead of a hurdle, and that resistance can help in making changes a success. Namely, resistance to change can have three advantages. First, resistance keeps the topic of change at
play, resulting in the employees being more aware of the change. Second, resistance could lead to a higher commitment since employees think more about the consequences of the change. Finally, resistance may provide managers with additional insight not thought of before (Ford et al., 2008). In short both Dent and Goldberg (1999) and Ford and Ford (2008), call for a more thorough understanding of resistance and claim that both supervisors and employees could be of value. Elaborating on this, the following paragraph will look further into employee support for change and its antecedents.
2.2 Support for change
For employees, change is often seen as a loss of benefits, even when the change may result in benefits in the future (Rousseau & Tijoriwala, 1999). On top of this, Heath and Heath (2010) state that employees tend to perceive change as negative because of the psychological process behind it. They name three reasons: employees would instead choose a known situation than an uncertain future, losses are more painful than gains are pleasurable, and employees tend to overestimate current entitlements and see them as more valuable as they are. Also, for changes to be successful, organizations need the support of their employees (Armenakis & Bedeian, 1999).
In the literature, support for change has been proven to have an essential role in the success of changes, both in the form of positive behaviors and attitudes (Kim Hornung, & Rousseau, 2011). Furthermore, Oreg, Vakola & Armenakis (2011) argued for three different responses to change: affective, cognitive, and behavioral. Where affective reactions could both be positive and negative. Examples of positive affective reactions are change related satisfaction (Jones, Jimmieson, & Griffiths, 2005) and pleasantness (Bartunek, Rousseau, Rudolph, & DePalma, 2006). On the other hand, negative affective reactions appear to be related to stress (Ashford, 1988), anxiety (Oreg, 2006), and negative emotions (Kiefer, 2005).
Cognitive reactions are concerned with the employees’ perceived value of the change for both the organization and the employees themselves. An example of measurement is the degree of sense-making (Bartunek et al., 2006), and effectiveness (Oreg et al., 2011). Lastly, Oreg et al. (2011) talk about behavioral reactions to change, which could be defined as behaviors in response towards change or as intentions to behave. Researches looking into behavioral reactions to change have examined situations where employees actively became involved in the change (Bartunek et al., 2006). Other researchers analyzed employees’ intentions of withdrawal as a reaction to the change (Martin et al., 2005). Finally, researchers studied employees’ intentions to support the change (Oreg, 2006; Miller et al., 1994; Bovey & Hede, 2001).
In their article Kim, Hornung, and Rousseau (2011) define change supportive behavior as “actions employees engage in to actively participate in, facilitate, and contribute to a planned change initiated by the organization or, more precisely, the organization’s management” (Kim et al. 2011, p.1665). As discussed in the previous paragraph part concerning behavioral reactions to change, Kim et al. (2011) additionally argue that employees may participate in making the change a success.
As mentioned before, employees’ support for change is an important factor for changes to be successful (Armenakis & Bedeian, 1999; Oreg & Berson, 2011). In order to get employees in a supportive state toward a change, there must be an incentive. Multiple studies have argued that leadership and vision play an important and reinforcing role in this (Noble & Mokwa, 1999), and are antecedents of behavioral and affective responses towards change (Yukl, 2010). The next paragraph will discuss leadership styles and visions in more detail.
2.3 Leadership
In the previous years, research on leadership has shown increasing popularity. In the early years, research mainly focused on leaders’ personality traits (De Hoogh, den Hartog & Koopman, 2001). This later shifted to particular styles of leadership containing the context and contingency approach. In their research, De Hoogh et al. (2001) mention the “new leadership” approach. This new approach focuses on two types of leadership: transformational leadership and transactional leadership. Another leadership style is charismatic leadership which, according to Den Hoogh et al. (2001), has much in common with transformational leadership.
Transformational leadership is proven to highly motivate employees and inspire them to perform above expectation (Bass, 1995). In addition, leaders high on transformational characteristics tend to be capable of shaping their followers’ emotional and motivational attachment towards the organization (House, 1977). They are also capable of creating employee awareness, and to stimulate and motivate these employees to act for the good of the organization instead of their own good. The name transformational is derived from the leaders’ capability to transform both his followers and organization. A way to achieve this is by communicating the need for change and creating a vision of opportunity and a prospering future (Tichy & Devanna, 1990). Tichy and Devanna (1990) argue for a similar important factor, which is the employees’ awareness of the significance of the desired future outcomes. Researchers Judge and Piccolo (2004), define four characteristics of a transformational leader, namely individualized consideration of employees, intellectual stimulation of employees, a charismatic image, and the ability to create inspirational motivation. In other research on transformational leadership behavior, Bommer et al. (2005) formulated six TFL behaviors; communicating a vision of the future, fostering the acceptance of group goals, communicating high-performance expectations, providing intellectual stimulation, role modelling appropriate behavior, and providing individualized support. They argue that, by communicating an
appealing vision of the future, managers can make employees enthusiastic about changes. This is in line with Judge & Piccolo (2004) who argue that a leader must have the ability to create inspirational motivation, which refers to the leader being able to present and create an inspiring and appealing vision to its employees. Indeed, according to Rafferty et al. (2013), employee motivation to provide support for change increases when employees feel a sense of discrepancy. They argue that a vision that stresses the downsides of the status quo and portrays a new desired alternative would stimulate this perception. Such a vision could even increase employee perceptions of valence.
Many researchers in the field of organizational change claim that employees need to feel some sense of urgency for the change to be successful (Kotter, 1995; Ten Have et al., 2015; Lewin 1951), and that one of the most important ways to do this, is to create a motivational and appealing vision. However, what these studies and the current literature on change fails to do, is to understand what a vision should contain in the sense of content (Venus et al. 2018, in press). In addition, Stam, Lord, Knippenberg, and Wisse (2014) argue that besides being an important part of leadership, vision is also one of the least understood aspects of leadership. Up until now, no evident conclusions can be drawn with regard to the relation between visions and change support (Venus et al., 2018, in press). This is due to the fact that vision is mostly investigated as part of a bigger construct, like transformational leadership and the direction of communication as a whole (Bommer et al., 2005). However, it seems that individuals have different responses to different visions of organizational change (Barger & Kirby, 1995; Venus et al. 2018, in press). Also, Venus et al. (2018, in press) argue that some employees might see the change as an opportunity while others will see the change as an assault on their current position or identity. Nonetheless, up until now, vision content shows limited theoretical background in the literature on organizational change (Yukl, 2010). Therefore, the following paragraph will discuss the concept of leaders’ visions of change in more detail.
2.4 Visions of change
In the current economy, one of the most important tasks of leaders is to visualize and communicate a promising and inspiring vision together with the corresponding end states (Venus, Stam, & Knippenberg, 2018, in press; Van Knippenberg & Stam 2014; Judge & Piccolo, 2004). By communicating a vision, leaders intent to gain follower support by means of accomplishing groups goals and collectively moving towards a future end state (Stam et al., 2010; Conger & Kanungo, 1998). Furthermore, Stam et al. (2014), argue that change and visions have intermixed definitions both leading to prospering future states. Here, visionary leadership is the tool that leaders use to create employee’ inspiration and motivation towards a certain change (Yukl, 2010). Van Knippenberg and Stam (2014) defined visionary leadership as the communication of a future image intended to persuade others to act upon this vision and to help realize this in the future. The communication of an inspiring and effective vision of change is an important aspect in gaining employees’ support for change and thus in making changes successful (Kim, Hornung, & Rousseau, 2011).
Previous research has studied the effects of vision and found that an effective vision should motivate, inspire, and commit employees to work towards this future image (Eisenbach et al., 1999). Nonetheless, ambiguity remains concerning the content of vision that attracts followers the most (Yukl, 2010). The previous literature mainly distinguishes between two different types of visions, regarding the message that it visualizes. First, Venus et al. (2018, in press) argue that organizational change can be perceived as a threat of discontinuity, where employees could lose their identity with the organization. This builds on social identity approaches of organizational change suggesting that employee resistance could arise from the threat to the identity of the organization (Van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2003). Venus et al. (2018, in press) argue that resistance to change can occur if the intended change discontinues the current organizational identity. Consequently, Venus et al. (2018, in press) argue that when a
vision ensures continuity to the employees, resistance to change can be prevented because the vision of continuity preserves the current organizational identity. They argue that this effect is even stronger when employees feel a sense of uncertainty (Venus et al., 2018, in press). Such a vision thus opposes the research that argues that a vision should focus on altering the current state of being and should inspire employees towards an inconsistent future. Considering that, this vision is focused on ensuring continuity of organizational identity, and is defined as a vision of continuity.
In contrast with a vision of continuity, this research formulates a vision of opportunity which displays a strong and favorable future for both employees and the organization and is in line with the primary definitions from the transformational leadership literature. Venus et al. (2018, in press), argue that the main focus of this type of vision is to focus on the organization’s future opportunities as compared to the status quo. A vision of opportunity is not concerned with ensuring continuity of the organization’s identity, instead it deviates from the status quo and focusses on an improved and promising future state. The main theoretical background from this vision comes from the leadership literature. Here, researchers like Bommer et al. (2005) argue that an appealing vision of the future increases employees’ sense of discrepancy, and thereby their motivation to support change. Also, Rafferty et al. (2013), suggest that a vision increases employees’ perception of valence and discrepancy in a way that they are able to work for a better organization in the future. In other words, a vision should focus on breaking with the status quo and highlight opportunities for the future state of the organization. Yukl (2010) indicates that this type of vision is concerned with maximizing the conditional outcomes of the opportunities an organization has. Up until now this vision has not had much theoretical and scientific background outside of bigger conceptual models from the transformational leadership literature. This study is the first research investigating the effectiveness of a vision
of opportunity as an isolated concept and strives to elaborate on the current definition, effectiveness, and literature of visions of opportunity.
Due to the emphasis on a positive, inspirational, motivational and prospering future state, a vision of opportunity is likely to motivate and inspire employees. The vision visualizes a future which is better than the status quo of the organization and gives employees knowledge about the organizations long-term goals (Bommer et al., 2005; Berson, Shamir, Avolio, & Popper, 2001). On top of that, Conger and Kanungo (1998), argue that a vision of opportunity will lead to employees feeling a sense of challenge, leading to increased commitment to the change. Finally, because a vision of opportunity emphasizes that there has to be a change differing from the status quo, employees could get the impression that the change is necessary for future survival, leading to employees being more supportive of the change because they will try to avoid future losses (Bommer et al., 2005). Therefore, this study proposes the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: A vision of opportunity is positively related to employees’ support for change.
Furthermore, previous research found that an inspiring vision, in general, impacts an individual’s commitment towards a specific change (Herold, Fedor, Donald, Caldwell, & Liu, 2008). Also, research has aimed to investigate the relationship between commitment to change and employees’ support for change (Herold et al., 2008). Herscovitch and Meyer (2002) for example, found that commitment to change is an essential predictor of employees’ support for change and, frankly, even a better predictor than employees’ organizational commitment. To gain a more profound understanding of the relation mentioned in Hypothesis 1, the following paragraph discusses commitment to change and its role in the model of this study in more detail.
2.5 Commitment to change
Previous studies found several significant effects of employees’ organizational commitment. Mowday, Steers, and Porter (1979), found that organizational commitment was positively related to job performance and organizational citizenship, and negatively related to turnover intentions and job absenteeism. Next to employees’ commitment to organizations, researches have additionally studied the relation between employee commitment and change initiatives (Herscovitch & Meyer, 2002; Herold et al., 2008). When looking at commitment in an organizational change perspective, commitment goes beyond having a positive attitude towards the change. Research argues that change commitment factors as intention to support the change and making an effort to make the change a success also play an important role (Herold et al., 2008). This means that in the context of organizational change, commitment entails not only a positive attitude or acceptation towards the change but also a positive alignment with the direction of the change.
The literature on commitment distinguishes three different types of commitment: affective, normative and continuance (Meyer & Allen, 1991). Where affective commitment refers to employees’ involvement, identification, and emotional bond with the organization (Parish, Cadwallader, & Busch, 2008). This could lead to the employee being willing to support the change. Next, normative commitment refers to employees’ feeling of having to continue to work for the organization because they have to (Meyer & Allen, 1991). In the context of change this may lead to employees supporting the change as they feel that they have to. Finally, continuance commitment refers to employees’ consciousness that they need to work for the organization because of the costs associated with leaving (Meyer & Allen, 1991). This is likely to lead to employees supporting the change because of the costs associated with resisting.
Herold et al. (2008), argue that employees’ affective commitment in most likely to be influenced by certain leadership’ behaviors because it shows alignment with positive attitudes
towards change. Also, in the previous literature, affective commitment has been associated with the transformational leadership several times, both theoretical and empirical (Herold et al., 2008). Specifically, research has shown that transformational leadership is related to increased affective employee commitment (Bycio, Hackett, & Allen, 1995), and as discussed before, creating and communicating a vision of the future is an important part of that (Bommer et al., 2005).
Thus, a vision of opportunity visualizes a future of advantages which challenges the status quo. Since employees’ affective commitment depend on a perception of the change being valuable, one might argue that a vision of opportunity emphasizes employees’ affective commitment towards the change. Subsequently, affective commitment is proven to be an important factor in gaining employee support for change (Jimmieson et al., 2008). Therefore, it is expected that affective commitment to change mediates, and thereby strengthens the relationship between a vision of opportunity and employees’ support for change. Also, Since positive feelings and thoughts towards the change are assumed to increase the willingness to support change, it is expected that affective commitment to change increases change-supportive behaviors that employees conduct. Therefore, this study proposes the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2: The positive relation between a vision of opportunity and employees’ support for change will be mediated by affective commitment to change.
Furthermore, considering commitment to change in more detail, research found that procedural justice is a predictor of employees’ commitment towards a certain change (Bernerth, Armenakis, Feild, & Walker, 2007). They found that procedural justice was positively related towards affective commitment to change. In addition, Tyler and De Cremer
(2005) found that when leaders act in a procedurally fair manner, employees are more likely to support organizational change. Similarly, Saruhan (2014) found that perceptions of procedural justice are an important factor for reducing employee resistance to change and employee favorable behavior towards change. To understand the relations between a vision of opportunity and affective commitment to change, procedural justice and its role in this model are discussed in more detail in the paragraph below.
2.6 Procedural justice
First of all, the concept of procedural justice is concerned with the employees’ judgement of fairness of the allocation process around decisions (Lind & Tyler, 1988). The characteristics of leaders’ decision-making procedures and policies lead to employee perceptions of procedural justice. Furthermore, Leventhal (1980) formulated six criteria of procedural justice; the consistency rule, claiming that allocation procedures should be consistent, the bias suppression rule, stating that decision makers shouldn’t act out of self-interest, the accuracy rule, which refers to the information in the allocation process, the correctability rule, which deals with the opportunities to change and unfair decisions, the representativeness rule, claim that all parties should be represented, and the ethicality rule, stating that the allocation process should be compatible with the ethical values of all parties.
Next to procedural justice, literature defines distributive justice which refers to the fairness of the distributive outcomes of the process and decisions (Cropanzano & Ambrose, 2001). They also argue that both procedural justice and distributive justice are related to reactions of employees and the relationship with their leader. Tyler and Lind (1992) state that distributive justice is related to the self-interest, meaning that employees will see a distributive just outcome as one that maximizes the outcome for themselves within the organization. Procedural justice on the other hand, has more of an indirect effect, meaning that it has value
in the procedures to help protect employees’ self-interests (Tyler & Lind, 1992). For an employee a fair procedure would be one that they would perceive as fair in the long-run (Cropanzano & Ambrose, 2001).
Moreover, both distributive and procedural justice are related to employees’ perceived fairness of the outcomes. Procedural justice is concerned with maximizing long-term procedural outcomes and gaining relational and social outcomes. Distributive justice on the other hand is concerned with the direct and material outcomes (Cropanzano & Schminke, 2001). Given the fact that procedural justice is mainly concerned with the long-term procedural outcomes and relational and social outcomes, this research focuses on procedural justice looking at employees’ active commitment and support for change. Korsgaard, Audrey, Sapienza, & Schweiger (2002), argue that procedural justice could affect employees’ perceptions of an upcoming change and their trust in the organization. Also, Ten Have et al. (2017) indicate that if the decision-making is justified, it will affect employees’ responses careless of the favorability of the outcome. Folger and Konovsky (1989), elaborate on this by stating that the effect will be stronger when the outcome of the process is unfavorable. Also, employees tend to give more attention to procedures which seem unfavorable, trying to figure out whether the decision is just but adverse or deceitful (Folger & Konovsky, 1989). Specifically, several previous studies have investigated the relationship between procedural justice and organizational change (Armenakis, Bernerth, Pitts, & Walker, 2007; Paterson & Cary, 2002; Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001; Viswesvaran & Ones, 2002). They found that when employees have a high feeling of procedural justice, this will result in: higher acceptance towards change, productivity, change readiness, employee satisfaction, and increased organizational commitment. Also, Saruhan (2014) found that perceptions of procedural justice are an important factor for reducing employee resistance to change and for employees’ favorable behavior towards change. On top of that, Tyler and De Cremer (2005) found that
when leaders act in a procedural fair manner, employees are more likely to support organizational change. Besides, Bernerth, Armenakis, Feild, and Walker (2007) found that procedural justice had a strong positive effect on employees’ affective commitment towards change. They found that procedural justice was positively related to employees’ affective commitment to change and negatively related toward organizational cynicism.
Up until now, previous research has failed to examine the possible moderating effect of procedural change on the relationship between a vision of opportunity and employees’ support for change and employee’s effective commitment to change. Research did find a positive direct effect of procedural justice on affective commitment to change (Bernerth et al., 2017) and a positive direct effect on employee support for change (Saruhan, 2014). One may argue that the relation between a vision of opportunity and employees’ support for change will be stronger when employees have a higher sense of procedural justice, because when employees feel that the process behind the change is fair, they will be more likely to support the change careless of the outcome (Ten Have et al., 2017). This means that when employees feel that a certain change is fair, this could result in a stronger relationship between a vision of opportunities and employee support for change and on the relationship between a vision of opportunity affective commitment to change. Therefore, this study proposes the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 3: The level of procedural justice moderates the effect of a vision of opportunity on employees’ support for change, so that for higher levels of procedural justice, the relation between a vision of opportunity and support for change is stronger.
Hypothesis 4: The level of procedural justice moderates the effect of a vision of opportunity on employees’ affective commitment to change, so that higher levels of procedural justice, the
relation between a vision of opportunity and affective commitment to change is stronger, which in turn will have a positive impact on employee support for change.
In figure 1 below, an overview of the conceptual model of this study is provided, together with the directions of the proposed hypothesis.
3. Method
This study strives to answer the proposed research question by means of a quantitative study, in which a survey is distributed over several Dutch companies. The following paragraphs describe the analytical steps taken during the research and data analysis. First, an explicit description of the sample will be provided. Second, the methods for the data gathering procedures are discussed, together with an overview and description of the measures. Finally, the results of the data analysis are provided and analyzed, resulting in either the acceptation or rejection of the Hypotheses provided in the theoretical framework.
3.1 Sample
In this study, the sample concerns both employees and supervisors who are currently involved in an organizational change process. Thus, the respondents for the sample are divided in two categories. The first group represents the managers and supervisors in the organizations. The second group represents the corresponding subordinates of those supervisors and/or managers. Furthermore, the questionnaire aims at organizations or institutions, which have just finished an organizational change or are in the process of an ongoing organizational change. Furthermore, this study made use of non-probability convenience sampling.
The sample size of this study consists of 103 dyads including supervisors and subordinates, gathered by three Master students of the University of Amsterdam. Concerning the supervisors, the data shows that 73.2 percent were males with an average age of 48.5 years of age. For the female supervisors the data shows an average age of 36 years of age. The overall average age of the supervisors was therefore 45 years, ranging from 25 to 64. The data of the subordinates showed that 51.5 percent identified as female, with an average age of 34 years. The average age of the male subordinates is about 35.5 years. Therefore, the overall average age of the subordinates is 34.5 years, ranging from 18 to 74 years. Furthermore, the data shows that the subordinates have worked an average of 6.3 years for their current organization, with
an average of 3.1 years under the same supervisor or manager. Also, the data shows that the subordinates work an average of 38 hours per week, ranging from 10 to 60 hours. In addition, the subordinates had an average of 3 to 4 times of supervisory contact per week, ranging from 1 to 6 times a week.
Looking at the sectors in which the respondents are active, we see that the biggest representative is the automotive industry with 18.5 percent of the total sample. Second is the educational sector, which represents 12 percent of the sample, and third is business services sector representing about 6.5 percent of the total sample. Finally, the data shows that the two most occurring changes were “changes in organizational structures and processes” and “changes in organizational culture”.
3.2 Procedures
The data collection instrument in this research was a cross-sectional survey. Furthermore, this study made use of no-probability convenience sampling. Two different versions of the survey were made for supervisors and subordinates, each measuring variables regarding the other party. Consequently, supervisors and subordinates both received an email, which contained information regarding the questionnaire together with a unique code that had to be filled in before completion. More details on this can be found in the appendix (1B). After completion, to verify that the right data points were connected, the questionnaires of the supervisors and the matching subordinates were linked using these unique codes. The questionnaires were taken online using qualitrics (www.qualtrics.com). Lastly, the response rate for this study was high, given the fact that most of the questionnaires were sent out in consultation with the companies’ management.
3.3 Data analysis
In this study, SPSS Statistics 25 together with the PROCESS macro were used to interpret and analyze the data obtained from the surveys (Hayes, 2013). For this research, a restraint was set to use relevant variable items that exceeded the minimum of a Cronbach’s Alpha of 0.7. Firstly, the variables are discussed in more detail, looking at the items and reliability scales. Secondly, an analysis regarding the descriptives of all the variables, including the control variables is discussed. Third, a linear regression analysis together with a moderated mediation regression analysis is discussed using the PROCESS macro model 8 (Hayes, 2013). Finally, exploratory analyses are discussed.
3.4 Measures
First of all, all the four variables in this model are continuous interval variables, measured on a 5-point Likert scale. Since the questionnaires used in this research obliged the respondents to answer all the questions, no missing data were reported. However, this research made use of dyads, combining the questionnaires of the designated supervisors together with the right employee, this resulted in 12 incomplete dyads. To deal with this missing data, the incomplete dyads were removed from the dataset. This means that only complete dyads were analyzed. Furthermore, there were no counter-indicative items in this research, so no recoding of variables was needed. In the paragraph below, the variables are discussed. More detailed information on the items of the variables can be found in the appendix (1B).
Vision of opportunity, the independent variable, is measured using five self-developed items, since a vision of opportunity specifically has not yet been thoroughly investigated in the past. These five items represent the employee’s perception of their supervisor’s vision of opportunity (Cronbach’s alpha .88). For the measure a 1-5 response scale was used (1= strongly
disagree to 5 = strongly agree). An example item is: “My direct supervisor has a clear sense of where he/she wants our company to be in 5 years”.
Support for change, the dependent variable, is measured using 3 items from the support for change measure, reported in the study of Venus, Stam, and van Knippenberg (2018, in press). These three items represent employees’ behavioral support for change within their organization (Cronbach’s alpha .94). For the measure a 5-point Likert scale was used (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). An example item is: “This person does whatever (s)he can to help the change be successful”.
Affective commitment to change, the mediator, is assessed by using 3 items of the original 6 measures Herscovitch and Meyer (2002) used in their study. These three items represent the affective commitment to change of the employees in the organization (Cronbach’s alpha .80). For the measure a 5-point Likert scale was used (strongly disagree to strongly agree). An example item is: “I believe in the value of this change”.
Procedural justice, the moderator, is examined using 3 items from the procedural justice measure reported in the study of Caldwell et al.'s (2004). The 3 items reflect the importance of fair procedures in organizations and the fair use of these procedures by a supervisor (Cronbach’s alpha .78). For the measure a 5-point Likert scale was used (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). An example item is: “Do you think this change was handled in a fair manner?”.
Leader member exchange (LMX), the first control variable, is measured using 7 items from the LMX measure reported in the study of Graen and Uhl-Bien (1995). The 7 items reflect the degree of LMX between the supervisor and the subordinates. For the measure a 5-point Likert scale was used (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). An example item is: “I have an effective relationship with my supervisor”. For this research, LMX is controlled for because the literature shows that employees with a stronger leader member relation are more likely to
support managers’ decisions and visions of change in general and would therefore be more likely to support change for higher levels of leader member exchange (Furst & Cable, 2008).
Tenure, the second control variable, is assessed by one self-developed item. This item reflects the number of years the employee was employed at his or her current company. The item was formulated as follows; “How many years do you work in your current company?” and was added to check if the number of working years at a company influenced an employee’s reactions to change. For this study, tenure was controlled for because tenure can result in lower employee support for change, because employees with a higher tenure might attach more value to the current organizational state, leading to more resistance (Van Dam, Oreg, & Schyns, 2008).
4. Results
In this section, the main findings of the data analysis are discussed. First, an overview is provided regarding the descriptive statistics, together with the correlation and reliability analysis of the variables. Second, the results of multiple regressions are discussed, resulting in the Hypotheses noted in the theoretical framework being either accepted or rejected. Finally, some explanatory analyses are given.
4.1 Descriptives
First of all, analyses on reliability, descriptive statistics, and correlation were conducted. The reliability test ensures the consistency of measurements. The following variables were tested on reliability: vision of opportunity, support for change, affective commitment to change, leader member exchange, and procedural justice. In this study the Cronbach’s alpha was used to analyze reliability, this measure represents the rate of internal consistency. Consequently, it was calculated whether deleting an item of one of these particular scales could result in an increased Cronbach’s alpha, however this was not the case. After the reliability tests were conducted, new variables as a function of the existing variables were created for the testing of the hypotheses.
Furthermore, descriptive statistics, by means of standard deviation and mean, of the following items were analyzed: vision of opportunity, support for change, affective commitment to change, procedural justice, leader member exchange and tenure. Also, an analysis on correlation was conducted for all the possible combinations of variables using the Pearson correlation coefficient. The results are displayed in Table 1.
Table 1: Means, Standard deviations, Correlations, and Reliability
Variables M STD 1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Vision of opportunity 4.09 0.70 (0.88)
2. Support for change 4.03 0.86 0.09 (0.94)
3.Affective
commitment to change 4.16 0.64 0.47** 0.19 (0.89)
4. Procedural justice 3.64 0.79 0.49** 0.13 0.63** (0.78)
5. LMX 4.21 0.62 0.49** 0.23* 0.38** 0.44** (0.86)
6. Tenure 6.38 8.72 0.05 -0.30 0.11 0.15 0.11 -
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). * Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). LMX = Leader Member Exchange
As can be seen in Table 1, the correlations show that vision of opportunity is correlated with affective commitment to change with a Pearson correlation coefficient of r = 0.469 and significance level of p < 0.01. Procedural justice is also significantly correlated with vision of opportunity r = 0.491 (p<0.01). Also, LMX is significantly correlated with vision op opportunity with r = 0.490 and a significance level of p<0.01. Furthermore, LMX seems the strongest predictor of support for change with a Pearson correlation coefficient of r = 0.231 and a significance level p<0.05. In addition, procedural justice (r = 0.632) and LMX (r = 0.387) are both correlated with affective commitment to change, with a significance level of p<0.01. Finally, the table shows that LMX is positively correlated with procedural justice with r = 0.448 and a significance level of p<0.01.
Surprisingly, as can be seen in Table 1, the independent variable vision of opportunity is not significantly correlated with support for change, the analysis below will elaborate on this. Furthermore, we see that the Cronbach’s alpha for all of the variables is above 0.7 (support for change =0.94; vision of opportunities =0.87; affective commitment to change = 0.89, procedural justice =0.78; LMX =0.86) which indicates sufficient/high levels of internal consistency.
4.2 Regression analysis
In order to test the first Hypotheses formulated in the introduction, a linear regression analysis is conducted. This regression analysis measures the linear relation between the depended variable support for change and the independent variable vision of opportunity, after controlling for tenure and LMX. Table 2 displays an overview of the regression analyses.
In the first step of the regression analysis the two control variables are entered in the regression: LMX and tenure. This is to ensure that the total variability of support for change is controlled so that the observed effect of vision of opportunity is independent of the effect of these control variables. In step 2, the predictor vision of opportunity is added.
Table 2: Linear regression
Model R R2 R2 Change B SE β T Step 1 0.262 0.069* LMX 0.386 0.147 0.265* 2.631 Tenure -0.009 0.010 -0.094 -0.934 Step 2 0.263 0.069 0.001 LMX 0.407 0.166 0.280* 2.455 Tenure -0.010 0.010 -0.096 -0.944 Vision of opportunity -0.038 0.138 -0.031 -0.276
**Significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)
* Significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)
LMX= Leader Member Exchange
As can be seen in Table 1, model 1 is statistically significant F (2, 98) = 3.533; p<.05 and explained 6.9% variance in support for change. The table shows that LMX has a positive coefficient with = 0.218 with a significance level of p<0.05. This indicates that support for change is estimated to increase for 0.218 when LMX changes for 1 unit.
In step 2 of the regression, the predictor variable vision of opportunity was added, resulting in the same 6.9% total variance explained by the model F (3, 98). However, this time the model was not significant. Thus, the introduction of the predictor variable
vision of opportunity did not explain any additional variance, after controlling for LMX and tenure. Support for change is estimated to decrease by 0.031 units as vision of opportunity changes for 1 unit. However, this effect is not significant (p>0.05). LMX however was statistically significant ( = 0.280, p<0.05), indicating that support for change is expected to increase with 0.280 units when LMX increases with one unit.
Next, a mediation analysis is discussed to test the proposed Hypothesis 2, suggesting a mediation effect of affective commitment to change on the relationship between a vision of opportunity and support for change. First, it is analyzed whether a vision of opportunity is positively related to affective commitment to change, and whether affective commitment is positively related to support for change. Thereafter, the mediation effect of affective commitment to change is examined. For testing the hypotheses, the macro Process for SPSS was used (Hayes, 2013). The statistical model used for simple moderated mediation is displayed below in Figure 2, where X represents vision of opportunities, Y represents support for change, and M represents affective commitment to change.
Figure 2: statistical model simple mediation
The results in Table 3 show the significance of the model towards affective commitment to change F (3, 95) = 9.969; p< 0.01. We can conclude that the model towards affective commitment to change is significant and explains 23.6 percent of variance in affective commitment to change. The results show that a vision of opportunity is positively related towards affective commitment to change with a coefficient of 0.357 and a significance level of
p<0.01. Meaning that affective commitment to change is estimated to increase for 0.357 units as vision of opportunity changes for 1 unit.
Consequently, we cannot accept the Hypothesis 2 suggesting a mediation effect of affective commitment to change in the relationship between a vision of opportunity and support for change. When looking at the model regarding the simple mediation analysis towards support for change, the model shows F (4, 93) = 2.647; p<0.05, explaining 10.2 percent of the variance in support for change. From this, it can be concluded that the moderated mediation model is not significant. The results show that affective commitment to change is not significantly related to support for change with a coefficient of 0.210 and a significance level of p>0.05. Furthermore, table 4 shows a bias-corrected bootstrap confidence interval (95%) for the indirect effect (B = 0.075), which appears to contain the value zero (boot llCI = -0.029; boot ULCI = 0.207). From this observation, it can be concluded that Hypothesis 2 arguing for a simple mediation cannot be accepted.
Table 3: Simple mediation regression
Table 4: Confidence interval: direct, indirect, and total effect
To test hypothesis 3 and 4, a moderated mediation regression is conducted to determine whether the size of the relation between a vision of opportunities and support for change
interacts with the moderator procedural justice and to analyze to mediating effect of affective commitment to change. For testing the hypotheses, the macro Process for SPSS was used (Hayes, 2013). The statistical model used for simple moderated mediation is displayed below in Figure 3, where X represents vision of opportunities, Y represents support for change, W represents procedural justice, and M represents affective commitment to change.
Figure 3: Statistical moderated mediation model
The results in Table 5 show the significance of the model regarding the moderation analysis toward affective commitment to change F (3, 95) = 25.668; p< 0.01. We can conclude that the model towards affective commitment to change is significant and explains 43.75 percent of variance in affective commitment to change. However, when looking at the coefficient of the interaction effect (a3), we observe a value of -0.094 with a significance level of p>0.05. Consequently, we cannot accept the hypothesis stating that procedural justice moderates the relation between a vision of opportunity and affective commitment to change.
Furthermore, when looking at the model regarding the moderated mediation analysis towards support for change, the model shows F (4, 94) = 0.040; p>0.05, explaining 4.04 percent of the variance in support for change. From this, it can be concluded that the moderated mediation model is not significant. Also, the table shows that not one of the variables is significant. In addition, we see that the interaction effect towards affective commitment to change (a3) is not significant ( = -0.094, p>0.05). The interaction effect towards support for
change (c’3) too does not show a significant effect ( = 0.085, p>0.05). From these observations, it can be concluded that Hypothesis 3 and 4, arguing for a moderated mediation cannot be accepted.
Table 5: Moderated mediation regression
4.3 Exploratory analyses
Additionally, in order to gain a more profound understanding of the model and the variables, some exploratory analyses were conducted. First, the direct effect of vision of opportunity and procedural justice on affective commitment to change are tested. A vision of opportunity visualizes a future of advantages, which challenges the status quo. Since employees’ affective commitment depend on a perception of the change being valuable (Bycio, Hackett, & Allen, 1995), one may argue that a vision of opportunity emphasizes employees’ affective commitment towards the change. This supports the study of Paterson and Car (2002), who found that a higher feeling of procedural justice could lead to increased commitment towards change. Therefore, the following hypotheses were formulated:
Hypotheses 5: A vision of opportunity is positively related to employees’ affective commitment to change.
Hypotheses 6: Employees’ perception of procedural justice is positively related to employees’ affective commitment to change.
In order to examine these relations, a linear regression is performed. This regression analysis measures the linear relationship between the depended variable affective commitment to change and the independent variables vision of opportunity and procedural justice. Table 4 displays an overview of the regression analysis.
Table 4: Linear regression
Model R R2 R2 Change B SE β T Model 3 0.658 0.433** - Constant 1.805 0.307 - 5.869 Vision of opportunity 0.191 0.080 0.209* 2.370 Procedural justice 0.431 0.072 0.530** 6.006
**Significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)
* Significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)
The results show that model 3 is statistically significant F (2, 98) = 36.689; p<.01 and explained 44.3% variance in affective commitment to change. The table shows that a vision of opportunity has a positive coefficient with = 0.209 with a significance level of p<0.05. This indicates that affective commitment to change is estimated to increase for 0.218 when a vision of opportunity changes for 1 unit. Also, procedural justice is proven to be positively related to affective commitment to change with = 0.530 and a significance level of p<0.01. This means that affective commitment to change is estimated to increase by 0.530 when procedural justice changes for 1 unit.
5. Discussion
In the following paragraphs, the most important findings of this research are discussed. Also, both the theoretical and managerial implications of this research are discussed in detail. Furthermore, limitations concerning the findings in this research are provided. Finally, suggestions for further research are given, together with a short conclusion.
5.1 Key results
This research aimed to gain a better understanding of the effect of vision content and communication towards employees’ support for organizational change. The first hypothesis suggested that a vision of opportunity positively influences employee support for change. However, the results obtained from the data do not confirm that there is a positive direct effect of a vision of opportunity on subordinates’ support for change.
In addition, the second hypothesis in this research aimed to find a mediating effect of affective commitment to change on the relation between a vision of opportunity on subordinates’ support for change. It was predicted that affective commitment to change would positively mediate this relation. Nonetheless, the findings show no support for this proposition. Third, the findings of this research do not provide support for the third hypothesis, claiming that the level of procedural justice would moderate the effect of a vision of opportunity on employees’ support for change. Also, the findings did not provide evidence for a possible moderation effect of procedural justice on the relation between a vision of opportunity and affective commitment to change.
However, the findings suggest significant relations for the exploratory hypotheses five and six. First, there was found that a vision of opportunity is positively related to affective commitment to change. Also, procedural justice is found to be positively related to affective commitment to change. Further implications of these findings will be discussed in the
following paragraphs. Second, a positive relation between leader member exchange and support for change, which is in line with the literature on transformational leadership.
5.2 Theoretical implications
In contrast with both the predictions and the previous literature, this research found no positive relation between a vision of opportunity and support for change whatsoever. This finding can be counterintuitive in the first instance. As stated before, a vision of opportunity emphasizes that there has to be a change differing from the status quo, employees may get the impression that the change is necessary for future survival, leading to employees being more supportive of the change because they will try to avoid future losses (Bommer et al., 2005). The literature on transformational leadership on vision argues that employee motivation to provide support for change increases when employees feel a sense of discrepancy (Rafferty et al., 2013; Bommer et al., 2005). They argue that a vision that stresses the downsides of the status quo and portrays a new desired alternative would stimulate this perception (Bommer et al., 2005). However, in this research, such a relation was not found. A possible explanation for this could be the relatively small sample of 103 dyads. It is possible that the small sample and thus the small number of different environments and changes have influenced the outcomes of this research leading to an insignificant effect.
Another possible explanation for the absence of this relation this can be found in the article by Venus et al. (2018, in press). Looking from another perspective, one could argue that organizational change can be perceived as a threat of discontinuity, where employees might be afraid to lose their identity with the organization (Venus et al., 2018, in press). The main argument here is from the social identity theory, implying that employees tend to blend their own identity with their organization. Meaning that when people identify themselves with their organization, their personal identity relies on the organizational identity. When an
